Allison Rossiter: I call it a 1950s leadership, like, "You will do as I say." That doesn't do it anymore. Now it's about inclusivity, getting people's opinions and making the right decision together as a team, as opposed to me throwing out demands. Andrew White: Hello, my name is Andrew White from Said Business School at the University of Oxford and I'm the host of the Leadership 2050 Podcast. Welcome to a bonus miniseries focusing on transformation. Put simply, it's when a company looks at its current way of operating and realises it's unsustainable. It's about how then it creates a vision for the change that needs to happen and implements that vision. And what we're looking at is the skills, the capabilities that leaders have to take workers with you to bring that future vision to life. How do they make that change happen across a large complex organisation? So it's really about leadership in practise. So joining me for this series is my guest. Co-host Adam Canwell, my transformation leadership research partner from EY Asia Pacific. Adam, it's great to have you with me. Adam Canwell: Hey Andrew, I'll tell you what, I'm really looking forward to this. I think we've been doing this research together now for the best part of the year, and this is going to be the first interview that we do on this transformation research. So I am really looking forward to this. Andrew White: So Adam, we're starting this special series with Ali Rossiter, the managing director of Roche Diagnostics Australia. Ali has been at Roche for 20 years and in her current role for the past three years. One of the reasons we wanted to speak to Ali was because she was at the forefront of dealing with the COVID crisis within Roche. She has done so much to transform that part of the organisation. She's somebody who I think I find deeply inspirational. And I think she's got so much to teach from the example she's setting as a leader. So we started by asking Ali, what does transformation mean in Roche? What does it mean when it hits your organisation and you as a leader, with everything you have to do? Allison Rossiter: As an organisation, we've transformed globally. So our organisation is at the forefront of medical testing, and [inaudible] about diagnostics specifically as opposed to our pharmaceutical arm, I work in diagnostics, and we're at the forefront of testing. So we've always got to be one step ahead. And whether that's genetic testing or certainly over the past two years, COVID testing, we were the organisation to get a test to market within six weeks, we've got to keep on the front foot. We've got to keep looking at a way to add value. And of course, our markets change all the time. There's always new diseases and things come in that we've got to try and deal with. So globally, we've gone through huge transformations, but here in Australia, which I can speak more about, I've gone through a huge transformation with my organisation. I came in three years ago and I spoke to nearly everyone in the organisation and said, "What's great, what's not so great, and how can we make this place amazing?" And from the feedback from the organisation is why I decided it was the right time to go through a transformation. Adam Canwell: And what did you decide to take on, Ali? What was at the heart of the transformation programme? Allison Rossiter: The heart of it was that we'd always been really successful and the business wasn't doing quite as well as it once was. And then there was a change of leadership, so my predecessor was imposed for 17 years and during call it their reign, but while they were imposed, they were very successful and did a good job. But then it's time for change. The market was changing. Our customers were changing. Our customers wanted different things. Patients no longer necessarily want to queue up at laboratory, they may want to self-test. Certainly on the back of COVID, more and more people want to self test, there's telehealth. So it was time to change. And we had to change because you have to react in the market to the uncertainties. And again, I think like I said before, to bring that value. The value we used to sell is not the value that will bring us through to the next phase of our business growth. And so that was one thing. And then hearing from the people, I think with the way leadership's changing as well. If I think about, this may be the wrong term, but I call it a 1950s leadership, like, "You will do as I say." That doesn't do it anymore. That doesn't work anymore. Now it's about inclusivity, engagement, getting people's opinions, listening to what other people have to say, and making the right decision together as a team. As opposed to me sitting in my jolly office in the corner, throwing out demands. So I think the people wanted that as well. And the final piece, and this was the most important piece of all, was we weren't customer-centric. We were internally-focused and we loved looking at our technology and thought it was wonderful. But what we tended to then forget about was our customer. So we would go and visit the customer, many different people from the same organisation, and we weren't necessarily putting them at the centre of all we do. So that is now our new business model is having the customer right there in the middle and we you work around the customer, as opposed to them working around us. Andrew White: I think, Ali, it's so interesting what you're saying. And two things really land with me that we've seen coming through in our research. The first is that if you're going to really kick off a transformation, you have to separate yourself from the status quo. You've got to recognise that there is something unsustainable about the status quo. It may work now, but it might not in a year and there's a slow degradation of performance. And that takes guts. It takes confidence. And there's an emotional process you as a leader have to go through to call it. So that's the first bit of the emotional journey we've noticed. And the second is that when you go and tell the organisation that they have to change as well, you can't do that in a command and control way. You talked about a 1950s style of leadership, so this style of leadership is different. It's about being able to lead your organisation through this emotional journey of transformation, this is the big headline from our research. But also you have to go through that first as a leader, then you lead others through it. So it's so interesting, you're giving colour to our findings. As a leader, can you tell us a bit more about how you do that? Have you seen certain people in your team succeed at it, excel at it? And how do you bring new people in? What's really been the thing that's come through and impacted you most? Allison Rossiter: You raise a really good point. So I was new to this organisation. So again, I'm not new to Roche, but I'm new to Roche Australia. So I didn't have any emotional baggage. And I came in not having to necessarily undo the things I'd created, but coming with brand new, fresh eyes and speak to the people and give the people a voice. So I think being a newcomer is slightly easier to start transforming than something you've created. Because of course, then you have biases of things. So speaking to the organisation and getting the organisation to tell me why we should change. When I asked them the question, "What's great, what's not so great, and how can we be amazing?" I was trying to, by asking the question how can we be amazing? I was trying to get some creativity going, trying to get people to think differently. I said, "If you were me, this was the only company on the planet, what would we do?" And get people to think really differently. And it was surprising that they didn't come out with any whizzbang ideas, they came out with pretty basic things like, "We'd be so professional and we would have the customer at the centre." And it was basic stuff that we had to get right. But I knew from then, they gave me the why, they wanted to change. What was interesting as we went through the journey then, because everyone talks about, "I love change," but really most people don't really love change. As you go through the journey, then they get scared and go, "Oh, we should never have changed. Why do we ever do this? Oh my goodness, we should never change." Then as you give them confidence and you keep pulling, "Come with me. This is what we wanted. This is going to be okay." Then they get on board again and they trust you and it's okay. But the one lesson I learned right at the beginning, I came on board, I know colleagues across the world who've gone through transformations in a similar way than I did in the end. And I spoke to them, "How did you do it? What happened?" And it was all about empowering the team. So I said to the leadership team, "How about we get the team?" And I got the leadership team on board. "We get this team and we get them to go away with a blank sheet of paper and come back with this great creation of what we're going to do." And this was me I think being a little bit naive, but trying to empower this organisation who'd been more of a 1950s leadership prior. So we got everyone to do a one minute selfie on why they were going to change the status quo. And we did that because then everyone would be a little bit out of their comfort zone. So all these selfies come forward and we picked 11 people and they were going to go away and change our organisation. So they went off site and they said to me every day, "Could you come at the end of the day so we can do a debrief?" And I said, "Yeah, of course." Because I said, "There'll be no leadership involvement, it's down to you. You're the people, we want to hear from you." And as I was going each day, they would get quite tearful and they'd feel like they'd let me down. And at the end, there was a few tears again. And they said, "We've failed. We've let you down here because we just don't know where to begin." And my learning from that was, I'd give them too much freedom, too soon, without any guardrails. So I guess my advice would be, if you've had an organisation who's been quite under a command and control leadership, you then can't open the doors and expect them to know how to feel empowered and accountable. You've got to take them on that emotional journey from one state of behaviour to another, that was really big. But it was really interesting, what they came back to me with, and this was the most powerful thing of all, "Ali, our culture needs to change." And they were really upset. They kept saying, "We've let you down, we've let you down." I said, "You know what? That one sentence is the key. Because you're right, our culture needs to change before we start designing anything on a piece of paper." And that's then where we focused next. Adam Canwell: Really at the heart of what we've found as we've gone on this little exploration together has been that the real heart of success in transformation is when you can truly bring humans to the centre, as we call it. But that's the people in the organisation understanding what your customers really need. And I think as you look at that then, how do we bring the whole human to the centre? And to do that, how do we make it as safe as we possibly can? And that's what you're exploring there, isn't it? And as you went, did you keep either a conscious or a subconscious eye on that, the safety of the team and their ability to speak up and how they could work with you? Allison Rossiter: 100%. So that was in the October 2019, I joined in August 2019. And then at the beginning of 2020, we had our very first in 21 years all-company organisation, come together and have it was meant to be like a kickoff meeting for the year. But a few drinks, a dance, do a bit of business, learn about each other and break down some barriers of who's who. Some people had never really met before. So that was the first step. And we got a guy to come to speak to us, he turned around a patient charity. Their culture was terrible, they having a really tough time and he and his team turned it around and now they're super successful. And we just wanted to learn from him. So it can be done. Trying to give the team confidence that actually this can be done and it can happen in the charity, it can happen in our organisation too. And then COVID hit. That was Feb, March the 11th COVID hit and we were all working from home. All these great plans were just shattered, like, "What are we going to do?" And of course, as I said, we were the provider of the tests. So then we got very busy bringing tests into Australia and sorting out supply chains and all the rest of it. And come about July, or June, July, I thought, "Right, we've got to continue with this transformation." So we decided we were going to take on the agile methodology and not be 100% agile, so we weren't looking to be a tier organisation, but just agile enough so that we weren't in these silos, because that was what was happening before. But we were a bit more fluid and we could move around where we needed to do. So I got a guy in to come and speak to the whole organisation about the basics of agile ways of working. And all I wanted to understand is, like when you go on holiday and you want to say, "Please, thank you, one beer please, taxi." whatever the basics. I just wanted just to learn the basic language of agile so we could all have at least a minimum conversation. And then we did that. And then I said, "Right, we all know now about squads and scrums. So let's pull together a squad on culture." And we had 40 people of the 200 people put their hand up and say, "I want to be part of this team, of this squad, working on culture." So when you say about involving the whole person, I involved them all. And then we'd get them to come and present and work together. We'd ask them the questions, we'd get them to ask questions, we'd get them to run sessions. It was phenomenal. And it was them who built the culture, not me. But part of that culture was speak up and it being safe to speak up, and your voice being heard and being respected. And that then continued. We had another big scrum and squad work on processes, and finally the operating model. But we did it really quick, but we did it with involving everybody and people volunteering. Andrew White: We're yet to come across the transformation that goes 100% right. So there will be moments when it wasn't going in the right direction you wanted, what did you notice and then how did you lean into that change? Allison Rossiter: I think there's a couple of examples. The first one is, like I said, I'm going to call it naivety, but giving people too much freedom too soon. I didn't really appreciate I needed to put more guardrails around it at that time. So that's a great learning where I had to lean in and change something. Because I didn't want my team to feel they'd let me down or they'd never speak up again. So I needed to fix that. Then I think the other piece, which is really key is through a transformation, we never lost any head count, but we did lose certain people because certain jobs were no longer required. And when the teams see certain people exit the building, which in our situation that happened, I know that doesn't happen in every transformation but in our transformation that did, that was hard. It was hard for us to say goodbye to some really great talent. It just wasn't the talent we needed going forward. And it was hard for our teams to say goodbye to the people they loved and had worked with for 20 years. And so the communication and going back to the why, that's so important. As they're saying goodbye to a 20-year employee who's been amazing. And we didn't fire anybody, it was a decision that we made together for the right thing for the business and for the individuals actually. But that's hard because when the other people are set in the background, they're just seeing people exit, like, "Oh, what's going on?" So the constant communication, reminding people why you're doing it, keeping people on side. I think during that moment, some of the team were thinking, "What have we done?" I wasn't thinking that, I was good with where we were going. I was happy with our decisions, as sad as it was to say goodbye to some people. But at the time, people were... Again, people don't like change on the whole. But now we've been live in our transformation for 18 months. We've been through the rest of the pandemic and we were right in the centre of it. And people have said to me, "Ali, if we didn't transform, we would never have got through where we've got through." We've started winning again. We've got new people on board, as well as our existing people from before. The energy's great. So it's turned out really good. But you've just got to keep people on the path because it's so easy to get scared and run away. But you've got to keep giving them confidence, putting your arm around them, making them feel it's going to be all right. And reminding them the why, why are we doing this? Why have we got to keep on trucking forward? Adam Canwell: It's interesting, one of the things we've seen at the heart of our research is that need to create a shared belief system so that you are almost creating a shared movement across the organisation, "This isn't mine, this is ours." And we're seeing leaders and organisations find ways of holding quite big dialogues across organisation to make that an our belief system. Did you find a similar kind of thing? Allison Rossiter: Yeah, definitely. Before we embarked on our transformation, we first of all built a strategy. What do we want to achieve? What do we want to be? And it wasn't me who created it, it was people in the organisation who created it. And our vision was better outcomes for everyone in Australia. So everything we did was to get to that north star. And that's what we kept talking about. So every communication I sent out, every time I spoke to the organisation, I tried to bring in that line. Not to be contrived, but because I believe it. And I believe it in my heart, that's what we're going towards. That's what we've got to try and achieve. That's our daily goal. And when people join our organisation, I sit down with every new employee and we have a conversation, a half-an-hour just to get to know each other. And that's what we talk about, we talk about our culture, we talk about our mindset and we talk about together we've got to deliver better outcomes for everyone in Australia. And I say to people, "You can turn up and just do your job and that's okay, we'll pay you and you can go home at five o'clock or whatever and that's all right. But when you working somewhere like Roche, where there's a patient at the centre, it could be our family or ourselves who need that test. It's so much bigger than that. And if you come to work thinking and knowing that you change lives every day, you don't come to work anymore. This is bigger than that." And so it's about that buy-in. And only by changing to reflect our market and reflect our customers, and try and innovate healthcare actually, and drive it to the next level, will we generate that. Andrew White: So Ali, one of the things we're really interested in is turning points. And we've come up with a few, and there may be more so don't feel constrained by this. But we see a turning point is when you take a failing transformation and you turn it into a successful one, that's one. Or a failing organisation, I think, or an organisation that could fail and turn it into a successful one. Another is where you accelerate success, where things are going well but then something comes along and decisions are made and it really puts rocket fuel behind something. And then also, where decisions are made that lead to temporary or long term underperformance. Do any of these things resonate with you? Is there one or more where you've seen activities of you and the team really turn the project particularly towards success, but also how to avoid underperformance? Allison Rossiter: Yeah, I think that probably the best example is around how we used our agile ways of working and our new structure, and our new transformational mindset as well, to tackle COVID. So in Australia, as you know, the borders closed. No one could leave, no one could come in, no one could go out. They called it fortress Australia. And our COVID cases compared to the rest of the world, we were very lucky. It wasn't as bad as some other countries. But for us, when you're in the middle of it, it's still bad. Doesn't matter how many cases there are. And towards the end of 2020, it was going down again. And at the beginning of '21, maybe around May, June, it started to pick up again, the cases started to rise. So we had a bit of a lull from a crazy 2020 where we were trying to get stock into the country and didn't know whether we were coming or going. To at the beginning of 2021 when our transformation went live, COVID was just ticking over nicely, wasn't stressful in any way for us with the test. We had the stock of tests in the warehouse. We add the connections with the government, the connections with laboratories. And I got this team together and I said, "How do we make sure that we're in the right place at the right time? We don't want to get caught short. We need to make sure." Because remember, in Australia, we're a long way from anywhere else. So to get stock into the country is not easy. So we need to make sure that we have great forecasting abilities and we know what's coming. And we formed a little squad, a COVID squad. And that's how we began, "What can we do? How do we make sure we're on the front foot of this?" And gradually that squad changed and that squad got a bit bigger, and our expertise grew. We're like, "Actually, we need somebody from government affairs, let's bring them in. We need somebody from communications, let's bring them in." And COVID in Australia went bananas. And if we'd never got that squad through our new ways of working, we were the organisation who wrote the white paper to get the rapid antigens accepted in Australia. We weren't allowed to use them for a long, long time. And we did almost national changing activities for the benefit of the country, so better outcomes for everyone in Australia. We achieved our vision through this way of working. And if we'd not have had that way of working in this transformation, I don't believe we would've done it. Because we would've been so fragmented, it just wouldn't have happened. And also, we didn't have that expertise before. We didn't have government affairs. We didn't have the people that we have now because, like I said, our customer landscape has changed. So we realised we needed different talents, which we brought in. Andrew White: So in some ways, transformation leads to transformation. What happened first was to set up the culture, and that then sets up the organisation for this next phase, this acceleration, given the need that was there at the time? Allison Rossiter: Definitely, definitely. And I think with our transformation, we now can dial it up or dial it down or pivot, whatever you want to call it. When we see a need, we all can swarm towards it, or think, "Actually, no, that's not doing what we thought it was going to do." Take the team away and swarm somewhere else. And that's now the flexibility we have. We've still got our day jobs to do, but sometimes things come out the blue that we have to go towards, that we have to really work on together as a team. And that activity may be a couple of weeks, it may be, like with COVID, pretty much a year. It just depends on the project and what's happening, the need. Adam Canwell: Leaning in when you need to, when there are turning points, where you've got to turn something around or accelerate something. As the leader, you can quite often become quite distanced from the organisation or from people in the organisation. So it's not always easy to know where the transformation is at or know where your people are at. How were you getting that information yourself? How are you, particularly as a reasonably new leader into the country and the organisation, how were you feeding yourself information so you really knew where people in the organisation was at? Allison Rossiter: When we first all went through the organisation, I did regular town halls. We were on lockdown as well, so regular town halls every two weeks. And it was more of a one-way information, but just for me, communication is so important. So I wanted everyone to feel at least like they knew what was happening. And not only were they afraid of a transformation, "Am I going to lose my job? Am I'm going to lose my best friend? Am I going to get sick and die?" All of that was going on, so it was pretty emotional at that time. Then the lockdowns lifted a bit. So then, we were coming back. And then I had some what we called listening sessions. So myself and another member or two of my leadership team, we would go around Australia to the different offices and we'd meet with a group of people and say, "Tell us what's on your mind, let's have a conversation." So we would do that. And then just now, we're proper back to the office now, so things are going well there. And I've just now booked a load of listening sessions. We actually called it, "Have a cuppa with Ali." So we'll go around the country and have a cup of tea with people and just, "What's on your mind?" And it's not a whinging session, it's just a chat. We can chat about dogs, cats, kids, transformations, COVID, whatever you want. It's trying to be human again. And I think, on the top of a transformation, which I'm sure many companies have gone through, we've got to get used to being together again and the importance of being human. And I think many people, if COVID's taught us one thing, it's taught us how much we need and love each other and want to be together. And I think that we took that for granted before. And then everyone was all, "I love being at home." And then they were like, "Oh, I'm a bit depressed at being at home." And then the importance of being together again, once you get over the commute or whatever it is that's keeping you away, that is so vital. I see it in my own office here so much. Andrew White: So Ali, this is a bit of a tricky question. If there's a superpower here that really moves the needle on transformation, what might this be? Put in another way, what is the most important skill here? Allison Rossiter: I think there's probably three. I'm going to try and give you three. The first one, you've got to lead by example. If you're all determined on this is the way forward and we believe it is right, you've got a goal and you've got to lead from the front and you've got to lead by example all the time. You can't expect anyone else to do it if you're not going to do it yourself. The second is communication. You've got to keep telling people again, and not just telling, talking, talking to people again and again and again. Hear their concerns. Listen to them, try and ease their worries. And just keep people talking because usually, one, their worries often are not... It's something and nothing that you can deal with really quickly, just by metaphorically holding their hand and listening to them for a minute. And my third one would be, if you believe in it, you've got to keep going. So yeah, you've got to leave from the front. But if you really believe it's right, don't give up on it. Because there's always hard challenges and there's always forks in the road, and there's always some hills to climb over. But if you really believe you're on the path to the destination, don't give up halfway through because the going gets tough, keep going. However, the caveat to that is don't keep going if you believe it's not right, change it. We're all within our rights, and it's a very good leadership trait, to be authentic and say, "Oh, time out guys. We need to have a little revisit of our plan." That's okay. But don't do that just because it's scary, keep going. Adam Canwell: It's fascinating what you say, because one of the really interesting bits that we've found through the research is this idea that we are calling discipline freedom. You've got to be determining to get there. You've got to know where you're trying to get to, the big outcomes, and have the discipline to drive at that. But at the same time, you've also got to accept it's not a linear process. You're going to have to learn, fail fast, shift, move. A to B doesn't work, it's A to try and get to B to end up in C, to go to a bit of D, to finally get to B. And you've got to be, you've got to be okay with that. So it's that determination to push forward, but a deep ability to learn as well and shift and pivot as you need to. And otherwise you won't get to the place you really want to get to. Allison Rossiter: No. And do you know what I think that comes down to as well, again, I'm going to call it being a modern leader as opposed to a 1950s leader. And I know them terms are probably not the right terms, but I think being authentic, allowing yourself to fail, allowing yourself to not be right all the time. I'm certainly not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. And I think being humble and going, "Guys, we need to stop a minute and just take a time out." And I think that's okay. But I think it's very difficult for a lot of people because their pride will get in the way, "Oh, I'm the leader and I should know everything." But you are not superhuman, you're just a person. And it's not all on your shoulders either. There should hopefully be a team of people, and ideally the whole organisation building this together. And then I think it takes courage but, if my leader did that, I would have complete respect for them for just pressing the pause button. We may not change, but press the pause button and collect your thoughts, check we're right. And if we're not, like you say, pivot. And if we are, continue marching ahead. Adam Canwell: Yeah. And having got to where you've got to now and looking back on it, and having really delivered a really successful transformation programme, if there was one thing that you could give to another leader who's just about to start a transformation programme, what would you pass on to them? Allison Rossiter: Have a really compelling why. You've got to know why you're doing it and the organisation have got to know why you're doing it. And if that's so compelling that you're going to do it, because it's not easy so it's got to be worth it's while. The outcome's got to be better than what you have today. And if you really believe that in your heart and your company, your organisation do as well, the journey will be less painful. My other piece of advice will be, don't strive for perfection, get on the journey. And like I just said, if it's not right, pivot and stop. And if it is right, carry on going forward. But don't take hard work to be not right. Sometimes it's just hard work. And the third thing is communicate, communicate, communicate. I cannot say that enough. Sometimes I remember going through our journey and thinking, "I don't understand why they don't get it. I've told them, we did a town hall about it." And half the people, as we all know, you need to communicate probably seven times for the message to go in sometimes. And that's a really true statement. Just telling somebody once doesn't necessarily mean it's gone in. Just because I've told them and I understand it doesn't mean they understand it. And I think when you're dealing with humans, humans are complex creatures. So we have to find as many different ways to communicate as well. Make videos, do emails, do town halls, do a dance, do a song, whatever. Just find a way to get your team on board. If you want them to rally round, that's really, really important. Adam Canwell: One final question, Ali, as you say, it's a deeply human process, transformation. And creating that compelling why that people can believe in, taking everyone with you as best you can, it's also a tough process for the leader as you go through that. How did you look out for yourself? What did you have for you as you lead through that journey? Because it's not like you know from the beginning that you're going to be successful. And there'll be some dark nights of the soul, I'm sure, as you go through it. So how did you look out for yourself? Allison Rossiter: I drunk a lot of wine, if I'm honest. If I'm totally honest. It was hard and there was one that one conversation I had to have with a person who I highly value and highly respect and actually was a key member of building the new organisation, that person no longer had a role. And I just felt sick. I thought, "How am I going to tell this person?" And it was the hardest call I think I've ever had to make in my life. It was awful. And how did I? I don't know. You've just got to take a deep breath. And I try to rationalise in my mind for moments like that, this is nothing personal, this is a business decision. Thankfully, I'm still very good friends with this person and it's worked out okay. But I just had to separate Ali the outside of work person to Ali the Roche person doing the transformation. I tried to do that quite a little bit. Another thing not related to work that really helped me was I took up ballet. And this might sound a bit crazy, but ballet, for anyone who's never done ballet, is so difficult. And I started doing ballet when I was 44 years old. I never did it as a kid or anything like that. But just the way you stand, the way you breathe, the way you hold your arms, the way you hold your legs. It's so hard to do that, I couldn't think about anything else. So for three hours a week, I just thought about my posture and my breathing and my arms. And that really, really helped me. And the last thing I did, and this was on lockdown, I don't have the time to do when I'm in the office, but on lockdown I walked a lot. So at night, instead of driving home, I'd go for like a five or a 10K walk. One point, I was walking 80K a week, but I was still doing my work, I listened to podcasts, doing phone calls. And just that fresh air and that clearing your mind, I can't advise that enough either. I didn't go to a gym or anything like that. I just did the ballet, I got a few too many glasses of wine, and the walking, they really made a difference. Andrew White: Ali, can I say a massive thank you. Thank you for the time you've given us this morning. Thank you for the story. So, so insightful in terms of what Adam and I are trying to understand. And thank you for what you're doing in Roche, thank you for the example you are as a leader. Thank you for the impact that Roche is having on Australia and I'm sure on other parts of the world as well. So I want to wish you all the best. Allison Rossiter: Thank you very much. My pleasure. Take care. Adam Canwell: I'll tell you what, Andrew, as a first interview on this series, she pretty well nailed every point that we wanted from the research, didn't she? Andrew White: I couldn't agree more. I mean, she didn't just nail it in terms of content, she nailed it in terms of actually some really good practical examples. And I loved a bit about take a video about why things need to change, and the way she was so insightful into the emotional journey that people go on I thought was super good. And then coming back to the why. I mean, as you say, so rich. Adam Canwell: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you could tell she architected a movement that truly paid attention to what she and all of our team believed in, that held people together through some pretty tough times as well. I mean, a transformation being driven in COVID and to maintain coherence through that, I think is an incredible feat of leadership and architecture. Andrew White: I think so. And I think she obviously has a deep insight into the why. And in a sense, COVID just put an intensity around it, an intensity around the emotion, an intensity around the why. And I think that whole point that we've made, Adam, that transformation leads to transformation. At the end, she was almost talking about they've developed this muscle, when they need it they can deploy it. Adam Canwell: Yeah. Andrew White: So it becomes a capability rather than a huge one-off effort. Adam Canwell: Exactly. And you could see that the organisation is in a healthier, richer space, even though it's been through some really tough stuff. It's now more nimble, more agile. Not just agile in agile methodology terms, but agile as an organisation. It was fascinating what she was saying really, that idea that she was determined to push forward and you have to be determined as a leader, but you also have to be really aware that you're going to have to shift and change. And she articulated that bit that we've been struggling with to some extent as well, that idea of you've got to be really disciplined to drive forward, while at the same time excepting there'll be oscillation and it's not linear. You can't just go forward. And it's a difficult concept to get your head around, isn't it? But she articulated it beautifully. Andrew White: She did. And I think we've tried with the metaphor of the cork screw. We've tried with other metaphors, maybe this is what we have to live with. It's a messy complex process. And that you can't really describe it because it's idiosyncratic to the context. But, get your head around that it's not going to be linear, that you're going to have to weave the rational and emotional together. It's about pace and patience. Maybe it's more about principles than it is about actually trying to describe it in a rational model. Adam Canwell: Yeah. I think it brings back some of the early stuff you talked about, that really at its heart, this is about creating a movement based on common belief. And to expect that you can then control that in a deliberate directional way is a bit crazy. But what we are doing is we're delivering against the belief that we've created together and we'll learn as we go and we'll shift as we go. Andrew White: Yeah. And that requires, as she said, a very different set of leadership skills. I thought the whole thing around the movement was so there, and how do you create these movements? And what are the skills that you need to have as a leader? But also, it was clear that it wasn't just her. There was a leadership team and there was a capability, what do the workforce do once you lead them into this? What capability did they start to have? Which is another form of leadership, I guess. Adam Canwell: Yeah. I loved it how she framed old leadership as 1950s leadership. I saw a bit of it in at least 2010, so I'm not sure it's 1950s. Andrew White: Yeah, well maybe 2022 as well. Adam Canwell: Yeah. Andrew White: Our thanks to Ali Rossiter. You've been listening to a special transformation edition of Leadership 2050, with me, Andrew White, and Adam Canwell from EY Asia Pacific. You can catch up with all our episodes from the Leadership 2050 series wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, why not subscribe so you'll never miss an episode? And help others find us by taking a moment to give us a rating and review. If you'd like to hear more podcasts from Said Business School, exploring leadership and how the business world is reimagining the future, please visit oxfordanswers.org. Leadership 2050 is a podcast from Said Business School at the University of Oxford. The producer is Eve Streeter. Original music is by Si Begg, and our executive producer is David McGuire for Stable Productions. In the next episode, we'll be talking to Rob Thomas, the chief operating officer at Mercedes Formula One. Until then, thanks for listening.